I was asked this numerous times myself: “Why can’t you just be a boy who happens to like girly things? Why does this have to make you a girl? Aren’t you just perpetuating the notion that to be a boy you have to (only) do boy things and exhibit boy mannerisms?”
It’s a valid question.
My answer is that in my case my experience caused me to have an epiphany moment where I realized it was a big freaking deal — in this world, in this society — to be a boy who happens to be girlish. And that the word “just” in the sentence “Why can’t you just be a boy who happens to be like a girl?” is a meaningless word aside from being an attempt to dismiss the conversation. There’s nothing “just” about it. It makes one as different from boys who don’t fit that description as being gay or being conventionally transgender and seeking to transition. It makes a lot of other things in life very different, especially courting and flirting and hooking up and all that stuff.
Of course we can “be girly”. I was. I didn’t consider it to be a big deal originally. It was just a way in which I was different. I was wrong. It’s a big deal.
Sure they do, because it’s impossible even at a young age to not pick up gender expectations projected by the people in your life–parents, siblings, day care providers.
I offer as proof the idea of the doll tea party, which little girls are supposed to just adore, and apparently some of them do. Where the hell would they get this idea? This is not an idea that will spontaneously arise, in anyone. Not in a little girl, not in a little boy. It’s a really weird idea when you think about it. “Hey, let’s sit around a table, with our dolls and little doll-sized teacups, and pour imaginary tea for our dolls!” Now where would you pick that up? Why would that occur to anyone? Maybe, if their mothers had tea parties. In my experience most American mothers do not. But there it is.
If you happen to be a little girl who thinks that idea is ridiculous and you’d rather go out and build a snow fort and have a snowball fight, you’re labeled “a tomboy.”
But if you’re a little boy who thinks the tea party sounds like a great idea, you’re labeled “a sissy.”
Tomboys are good and wholesome, sissies are bad. Because tomboys aspire to be men, which is better, and sissies aspire to be women, which is lesser.
I get a vibe that the parents need to be in counseling if they’re not. A “3 year old m-f” is really just a fact about the family situation at least for the time being, and not the kid. I would drag them all in, but I’m biased that way. Kids get used for all kinds of covert purposes.
To Velocity and drad dog (and anyone else bothered by this), I’ll ask the same question I asked Fretful Porpentine:
If the 3-year old expressed to their parents that they were the opposite gender, what do you think “being supportive” of that child entails? Of those things you think are happening, which do you think are bad?
I suspect you have some incorrect ideas about the process at that age (or any age), but I’d rather address your actual ideas than what I imagine them to be.
Why does this matter? If a 3 year old wants to be referred to as a girl or a boy, why not go ahead and do it? No hormones, no medical treatment, nothing but referring to the kid in the way they want to be referred to.
Just a quick note to a couple of people: it’s considered offensive by many to use transgenders as a noun rather than an adjective. I’ve seen SuntanLotion and HoneyBadgerDC refer to “transgenders” and that is not the term preferred by most, as it strips the person of their personhood.
No one’s pumping hormones into children. WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) guidelines are considered by most to be the gold standard for transgender health and they outline the minimal acceptable requirements for commencing hormone therapy, including a well-established relationship with a psychotherapist (WPATH doesn’t specify number of sessions but rather depth and specificity of treatment for gender dysphoria), informed consent, and age restrictions. No doctor anywhere is out doing what you’ve described here. When my son was 15, we started at the GeMS clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital and their process was going to be 12-15 months before any medical intervention, and that’s for an older kid who had 2 years of documentation from a mental health professional.
3-year-olds who get seen at such clinics are given thorough medical exams, etc., and are typically seem yearly to assess where they are in the Tanner stages. Blockers aren’t typically offered until Tanner stage 2.
This, though, is absolutely true. I used to have a thing for shoes and handbags. But I only have 2 feet and just so much stuff to carry.
What could be better, though, than forcing my child to be transgender? It’s all the rage! He really went all in, too! The dysphoria, depression and anxiety. $300/month in therapy costs. Crying his eyes out because he feels “like a freak” (his words) at a family wedding that required formal wear and photos. Holding urine and bowel movements in from 7:30-3 each day because he’s scared to use the boys’ room at school. Feeling a tiny piece of him die inside every time someone calls him by his feminine name we had given him at birth.
It’s completely worth it, though! I’m so goddamn fashionable that it’s amazing!
You can really see why a lot of the angst and pushback about transfolk and gender nonconformity comes from men rather than women. If you’re a cis man who fits the masculine archetype and you’re aware that masculinity is the high-status position… well, that’s a pretty sweet deal. You get status just by acting like you naturally want to act - who wouldn’t like that?
Transwomen and feminine men threaten that deal much harder than tomboy women - they put the whole status hierarchy in danger by not treating masculinity as inherently more desirable than femininity
I don’t agree. It’s reminiscent of the ridiculous trope that was doing the rounds a few months ago from some bigot who imagined he was doing a reductio ad absurdum in asking how we should treat someone who identifies as a helicopter. The notion that there’s some equivalence implies that people with a trans identity are just play-acting, fantasizing, acting out on a whim. It’s certainly true that children use play and imagination to explore their gender identity, but to equate a trans child’s gender identity to a child imagining being a helicopter or a non-human animal is wrong and unhelpful.
Human beings of both sexes contain virtually identical genetic material, and share similar developmental environments. It’s perfectly biologically plausible that someone might be born with a male body but have (or soon develop) a female brain, or vice versa. And the state of someone’s brain is something physical and objective, a neuron configuration, it’s just as real as the morphology of their body. A trans person’s gender identity is not a choice, it’s not a fantasy, it’s their mental phenotype, their neuron configuration. Cis or trans, who you are is defined by your brain, not by what’s between your legs at birth. The fact that the only way we have to determine someone’s neuron configuration is to talk to them does not make it any less objectively real.
But our cells do not contain the DNA of a dog, nor do we contain turbines, gearboxes or rotor blades. There’s a “furry” culture in which people identify strongly with non-human animals, and may prefer to be treated as though they are dogs. But they don’t have the DNA that’s required to develop a doggy brain, so they are not really dogs in the same way that a trans woman really is a woman. There is no equivalence or slippery slope here.
Christ almighty, it ain’t that hard. When your child come out: “I love you, you’re my child, I’m with you on the journey, big hug.” It’s that simple, keep it low key, and run as much interference as you can/needed.
I have no idea what it’s like to be born in the wrong body. Nor when it’s “right” to have the realization. I am here to help my child on the journey, and in my case that means divorce, my retirement and a whole lot more, which I gladly trade to give my kid a safe haven. YMMV.
Me thinks its a spectrum. Some kids are obviously one end or the other from an early age. Other’s figure it out later (and prolly puberty is the trigger). And if 6 or 60 months later it turns out differently, who cares?
I will say for the record, that my 14 year old coming out as trans is likely the bravest, most challenging thing he will ever do in life.
No shit, right? Transgender people, like many people who are somehow not “mainstream” , frequently take years to come out because it’s so damn scary. And my kid isn’t alone in doing it in stages: first you try it out with a couple of people you trust. Even then, there’s a big fear of being rejected or worse. Then you can breathe for a few minutes. Then you think about your friend or cousin or brother and how shitty it feels to be hiding your true self from them 24/7. So with heart in your throat and sweaty palms, you come out to them. Then there’s the first time you’re out in public and you just can’t hold your urine any longer, so you get super brave and ask where the restroom that matches your true gender is, so you’ve essentially come out to the person at customer service. Then you were half hoping your aunt Frannie would shuffle off before you ever had to tell her, but there’s a family gathering in May and you look different, so you allow your parents to tell her…
Hell, my son knows that I would crawl over broken glass through a fire for him, and he was still scared to tell me.
Coming out isn’t a one-time event. It’s showing up as yourself every day, even though it’s super hard. It’s looking in the mirror every day and telling yourself that, scary as it is, you deserve the space you take up in the world, and you deserve to occupy in genuinely, and you deserve to live the way you were meant to.
A lot of children about 2-3 yrs old go through a stage of very explicitly learning about gender. They will ask “Is that a boy or a girl?” or “Is that a man or a lady?” about everyone they see. Many children will state they themselves are a boy or a girl, and if their label doesn’t match their genitalia, parents will often correct them. Children at that age don’t necessarily see gender as something immutable though. Sometimes they think they can change their gender, e.g. by getting a haircut, or ‘when they grow up’, and sometimes they will declare they are one gender and then later change their minds.
I work with 0-5s and in my experience 0-2s of both genders have similar interests, but around 4-5 a lot of strongly gendered play emerges and adult influence is very obvious (e.g. “my dad says boys are stronger than girls”).
I work mostly with younger ones at the moment, and haven’t had a gender conversation in a while. I’m hoping it stays that way, because I’m not sure I know how to handle those conversations any more
You were doing really good until you got to this point.
I am trying very, very hard not to be offended by your comment. Yes, I am a tomboy. NO, I DO NOT ASPIRE TO BE A MAN. I am a woman who has interests that are stereotypically “male”, but I AM a woman and have no desire to be a man.
“Tomboys” who feel they are men in a woman’s body are “transmen”.
“Tomboys” who feel they are women in a woman’s body are … wait for it… women.
And, contrary to your assumption, there’s still blowblack for tomboys. I hope not as bad as when I was a child, when I’d be punished at school for not being feminine enough. Still occasionally get people who assume or insist I’m a lesbian (Not that there’s anything wrong with that these days, I just happen to be heterosexual) and so on. It’s not as bad as what homosexuals and, even more so, transgender people get, but it’s not an existence free of judgmental assholes.
Chemotherapy also stops a normal, natural progression in the lives of cancer patients. The fact that a treatment stops a “normal, natural progression” of biology does not mean it is bad.
And, as has been noted upthread, puberty blockers don’t pump hormones into the body; they actually prevent the pumping of hormones into the body.
That might be (but isn’t necessarily) an outward sign that he identifies with traditionally female social behaviors.
There’s hating your body, and then there’s feeling like your body doesn’t match the gender you feel in your mind. They’re two different things, but admittedly there is often a great deal of overlap. The mental issues of transgender individuals are often helped by being allowed to live as their self-identified gender, and they’re often helped by receiving hormone therapy.
I agree with you in terms of an overall societal approach to transgenderism, and the bigot you describe seems to be rejecting the idea that transgenderism even exists. But please let’s look at the context of this specific remark. The OP’s tone is clearly not dismissive, but rather, “I don’t get this, so I’m asking.” The OP is talking about a three-year-old, and is earnestly trying to understand how you tell the difference between a child that young who is transgender vs. who is playing “let’s pretend.” I think that is a legitimate question.